US Army Corps of Engineers

BUILDING STRONG®

Carbon Sequestration Capability?Biomass Potential?the Military Installation Context

Dr. Hal Balbach

Environmental Biologist

USA ERDC-CERL

25 Feb 2010

What are our land uses?

“Mission needs” is the standard answer A complicated picture Need space on land, sea, and air Active training on most lands Safety setbacks and buffers for others Both are equally important

Carbon and BiomassWhat are the DoD needs?

Military installations ca 25 million acres Corps water projects another 15 million ± Roughly 50% are forest/woodland BRAC process has reduced number of

active installations recently MISSIONS have not been reduced Operation intensity has increased on

remaining installations

Stylisma pickeringii (Pickering morning-glory)

Eastern indigo snake (Drymarchon corais couperi)

SE Kestrel (Falco sparverius paulus)

Pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus)

Gopher frog (Rana capito)

Carphephorus bellidifolius (Sandywoods chaffhead)

Warea cuneifolia (Carolina pinelandcress)

Bachman’s sparrow (Aimophila aestivalias)

Gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus)

Red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis)

Striped Newt (Notophthalmus perstriatus)

Astragalus michauxii (Sandhills milkvetch)

SE Pocket gopher (Geomys pinetis)

Many animal (and plant) species are officially listed as threatened or endangered at the state or Federal level, and

many more are considered at-risk of being so listed.

TES and SAR Concerns

Military installations support 200+ TES Also have ca 170 SARs Highest density of TES and SAR of any

Federal land holding agency 1000+ biologists working on the ground Serious about stewardship missions Spend ca $65 million/year on this

Biomass Concerns

How to determine potential demand? What capital costs would be needed? What about effect on land uses?

► Training uses – realistic environment► Wildlife management requirements► Land restoration plans?

Who would prioritize? Potential for Congressional pressures?

Carbon Budget/Capture Concerns DoD is actively registering/measuring CO2

► Heating plants► Vehicles, aircraft, generators

They are not generally measuring terrestrial pools

Not clear what the requirement will be for terrestrial sequestration► Calculation protocol► Future management needs/requirements

Some Exceptionswith respect to terrestrial carbon issues

The SERDP program funded a series of basic studies (1999 – 2009) which examined carbon budgets at Ft. Benning, GA

Mostly looked at small study plots Some attempts to expand installation-wide One major study through USGS-EROS Another study (not research funded) was an

offshoot of a CO2 management study of operations generation activities

ENVIANCE EXPANDS U.S ARMY’S DEPLOYMENT OF REAL-TIME GREENHOUSE GAS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TO TWELVE BASES NATIONWIDE

Success of Initial Fort Carson, Colorado, Program to Manage and Reduce the Army’s Carbon Footprint Prompts Further Deployments in Alabama, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Enviance, a proven provider of software solutions to help organizations manage carbon and other regulatory risks, today announced that the U.S. Army has expanded its deployment of the Enviance greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting and management system, which allows for real-time tracking andmanagement of GHG emissions and energy intensity reductions as mandated by Executive Order 13423.Initially proven at Fort Carson in Colorado, the Enviance system is being rolled out to an additional 11 installations across the United States, including Fort Benning, Ga.; Letterkenny Army Depot, Pa.; Redstone Arsenal, Ala.; Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.; Fort Rucker, Ala.; Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Drum,N.Y.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md. and Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

Enviance™ Procedure

Additional effort beyond original contract Started with an installation inventory Used reference data from Smith, Heath,

and Woodbury, 2004, How to Estimate Forest Carbon for Large Areas from Inventory Data.

Values expressed as Mg C per ha Broad regional values only ones used

USGS – EROS Study

Multi-year SERDP Project (SI-1642) Broad biogeochemical focus Example of combining several models and

datasets► SSURGO► CENTURY► Several others

Implementation of GEMS system Resulted in numerous papers by Zhao, Liu and

others in 2009 - 2010

Tree density distribution From original inventory

0

5

10

15

20

25

0-49 50-99

100-149

150-199

200-249

250-299

300-349

350-399

400-449

450-499

>500

Tree Density Class (trees/ha)

Fre

qu

ency

(%

)

Liu, et al 2008

Distribution of aboveground biomass density among density classes

From original inventory

aboveground biomass C (Mg C/ha)

7.7

64.0

25.4

2.3

0.6

0-20

20-40

40-60

60-80

>80

Liu, et al 2008

Modeling Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Uncertainty Assessment

Shuguang (Leo) Liu and GEMS Team U.S. Geological SurveyEarth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center

U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological Survey

Land cover change and disturbance maps Land cover change (e.g., ag census data, GIS grid time series, or both) Disturbances maps of extent and severity (fire, pests and insects, etc.) Coefficients describing carbon flow among pools induced by disturbances

Soil and DEM data GIS dataset such as SSURGO, STATSGO, FAO soil database DEM data (USGS/EROS) Stream networks (USGS/EROS), stream and nutrients flow (USGS)

Climate GIS datasets of monthly precipitation, max and min temperature To run EC-LUE: daily radiation/PAR, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed

Management Data Crop composition, crop rotation probability (e.g., NRI) Ag harvesting change in history (whole vs. grain only ...) Tillage information Nitrogen deposition map Forest age distribution and biomass data Selective cutting data by state Timber production

Model setup match table: land cover classes to model ecosystems (make GEMS very flexible)

GEMS Inputs

GEMSData Assimilation

GEMS General Ensemble Biogeochemical Modeling System

Input Data Module Output Data Module

Biogeochemical models (e.g., EDCM,

CENTURY, BIOME-BGC)

Data model fusion system

In-situ and Census Data

Land Surface Dynamics

Soil data

Vegetation data(FIA, USDA, etc)

Fluxnet data

Land cover/use change model (e.g., FORE-SCE,

CLUE)

Land cover and disturbances

Ecosystem Performance (e.g., productivity)

Spatially distributed characterization of ecosystem states and changes (e.g., carbon stocks and fluxes) with measure of uncertainty under various land use, management, and climate change scenarios

Assessment (e.g., carbon sequestration, risk, cost-benefit)

Climate Change Scenarios

IPCC, etc.

Land Use Scenarios

Economic and managementScenarios

Reporting by land management units, regions, and nation

GEMS

o A modeling system for spatially explicit simulation of biogeochemical cycling over large areas

o Developed at USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center

o Deployment of the encapsulated plot-scale model in space is based on a Joint Frequency Distribution of the major controlling variables (e.g., land cover, climate, soil, etc.).

o Included data assimilation algorithms

o It includes a dynamic land cover/use change submodel

o Stochastic ensemble simulations to incorporate uncertainties in input data

o Uncertainty estimate of carbon dynamics

o Major applications (US, Africa, and Central America)

GEMS and Other Models

GEMS is a modeling platform, originally designed to facilitate the deployment of classic site-scale models (e.g., CENTURY, DNDC, Biome-BGC, EDCM) in space. It uses two approaches to interact with encapsulated biogeochemical (BGC) models:

Agent Implementation. Any Model Interface (AMI) or agent is developed to implement the interface between any BGC model and GEMS. Agent Implementation avoids modifications to BGC models and can be very useful for sharing models that are hard to modify.

Direct Implementation. EDCM is merged with GEMS to allow running simulations of landscape and river transport, and also easier interactions with other modeling systems such as FORE-SCE. This direct implementation allows GEMS to run simulations in the space-time sequence rather than the original time-space sequence.

GEMS Outputs

Carbon stocks Biomass C: root, stem, leaf and branchDetritus/LitterSOC: active, slow and passiveEcosystem carbon stock

Ecosystem Carbon Fluxes and GHG Fluxes 4Ps: GPP, NPP, NEP (NEE), NBP Respiration N2O and CH4 Fluxes Fire induced carbon emission Tree biomass removal Grain yield Crop straw removal Lateral fluxes of C and N

Carbon trends and sensitivity to environmental factors Carbon change through time Carbon sensitivity to climate (precipitation, temperature) and atmospheric changes (CO2 concentration, Nitrogen deposition) Carbon sensitivity to natural disturbance and human land use (fire, logging etc.)

Other outputsWater balance (e.g, ET, run-off), hydrological routing and soil erosion/deposition

FORE-SCE Projected Land Cover Change from 1992 to 2050: Southeast U.S.

FOREcasting SCEnarios of future land cover (FORE-SCE) model （ Sohl and Sayler, 2008. Ecol Model）

Spatial Distribution of C Sequestration: FB vs. SUR

Carbon Sequestration

Land Cover Change

Carbon Sequestration: Fort Benning (FB) and Surrounding Area (SUR)

Average carbon sequestration rates for FB vs. SUR:

Current (1992-2007): 76.7 vs. 18.5 g C m-2 yr-1

Future (2008-2050): 75.7 vs. 25.6 g C m-2 yr-1

-50

0

50

100

150

1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

Year

C s

eq

ue

stra

tion

(g

C m

-2 yr

-1)

FB_current SUR_currentFB_future SUR_future

Different C sequestration rates caused by different land use change and practices.

Impacts of Spatial and Temporal Resolution of Land Cover Change Info